High dynamic range third-order correlation measurement of picosecond laser pulse shapes

Abstract

A third-order correlation system has been developed, which enables the contrast ratio of high-intensity ultra-short laser Dulses to be measured on a single shot. with a dynamic range of better than loa.

Backward-propagating MeV electrons from 1018 W/cm2 laser interactions with water

“…To determine the effect of pre-plasma in this experiment, the laser's temporal profile was measured on the nanosecond, picosecond, and femtosecond scales. A Thorlabs DET10A photodiode and 2.5 GHz Tektronix oscilloscope, a single shot autocorrelator 24 , and a scanning third-order cross correlator 28 were all used to characterize the Red Dragon's degree of prepulse. Similar to the nanosecond diagnostic outlined by Pape et al 29 , the photodiode was saturated to reveal low-signal nanosecond pre-pulse features.…”

Contrast Improvement of Relativistic Few-Cycle Light Pulses

“…Still the required measurement dynamics is not reached and typical ultrahigh intensity lasers have low repetition rate (∼10 Hz) prohibiting the use of Lock in detection. Cross correlation based on third harmonic generation (THG) in two subsequent nonlinear crystals provides both high dynamic > 10 OOM and free from time ambiguity Luan et al (1993); Antonetti et al (1997); Aoyama et al (2000); Tavella et al (2005). Even a single shot version of this cross-correlator was realized for low repetition rate high energy laser systems Dorrer et al (2008); Ginzburg et al (2008).…”

High dynamic range multi-channel cross-correlator for single-shot temporal contrast measurement

“…Recently, several methods have been developed for the measurement of temporal contrast, using instruments such as FROG [3], Wizzler [4], and SPIDER [5]. These spectral techniques can measure a precise pulse duration and temporal contrast within 10's of ps over a dynamic range of 10 6 . Moreover, a scanning cross-correlator has been widely used for temporal contrast measurements with a wide temporal range (>100 ps) and high dynamic range (>10 [8][9][10] ) [6] [7].…”

“…These spectral techniques can measure a precise pulse duration and temporal contrast within 10's of ps over a dynamic range of 10 6 . Moreover, a scanning cross-correlator has been widely used for temporal contrast measurements with a wide temporal range (>100 ps) and high dynamic range (>10 [8][9][10] ) [6] [7]. However, because of the low repetition rate of the high-power laser system, the intensity fluctuations due to energy, temporal and spatial properties of the pump laser and/or seed laser, and so on, a shot-to-shot contrast measurement is required.…”